WarSclerotic

Russian sources: Syria set for war with Israel. Iron Domes at Haifa and Safed.

( The “sources” here are as unreliable as can be. Nevertheless, anything is possible. Let’s see if Netanyahu actually flies off to China. – JW )

Iron Dome missile interceptor on the Golan

Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said Sunday, May 5, that the strike at Syria overnight represented a “declaration of war” by Israel. Russian and Iranian media earlier predicted full-scale Middle East hostilities involving Israel erupting in the coming hours, in the wake of Israel’s renewed strikes against Iranian missiles bound for Hizballah and other targets around Damascus. Russian sources reported rumors that President Bashar Assad was on the point of declaring war on Israel.

Russia Today claimed that an Israeli rocket strike Sunday caused heavy Syrian casualties – according to rumors, at least 300 members of the Syrian Army’s 501st Unit dead and hundreds filling four Damascus hospitals. debkafile: If this is confirmed, then the unit which operates the chemical weapon facility at the Barzeh district north of Damascus at the foot of Mt. Qassioun was hit. Israel’s security cabinet holds emergency session.

The same Russian source reported that Syrian security forces cordoned off the sites of the explosions against entry. Residents reported after the blasts that the ground moved with the force of a 4 magnitude earthquake.

Shortly after the Israel attacks in the Damascus area Sunday, the IDF posted additional Iron Dome anti-missile batteries in Haifa and Safed to defend those northern towns against incoming Syrian and Hizballah rockets.

Low-ranking Syrian and Iranian officials responded to the Israeli attacks on Syria: Deputy Information minister His Al-Yiftah commented by saying that “a new foreign element had entered the Syrian conflict overnight and this would cause war.”

In Tehran, an Iranian foreign ministry official condemned “Israeli aggression on Syria and accused Israel of fomenting instability and ethnic discord in the region. The commander of the ground forces asked if the war was not about to burst out of Syria’s borders, without answering the question.
An Israeli official confirmed to AFP that Israeli had Sunday conducted a second round of strikes in three days on advanced weapons including Iranian F-110 weapons bound for Hizballah in transit at Damascus international airport. Syrian TV reported only an attack on the Jamraya military research center just north of Damascus. This was the same facility which Israeli planes attacked in January.

Israeli head of military intel discussed Syria, Iran in secret Beijing visit – Diplomacy & Defense – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

PM Netanyahu to depart just 10 days after head of Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi’s secret visit to China, centered on two major diplomatic-security issues, in which China had a key role: the Iranian nuclear program and the civil war in Syria.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo by Emil Salman / Haaretz Archive

The head of Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, met his Chinese counterpart recently during a secret visit to Beijing where the two discussed developments in Iran and Syria.

The visit came about 10 days before Benjamin Netanyahu’s scheduled departure for China Sunday night, with the prime minister expected to raise concerns about Iran’s nuclear program and about Syrian arms falling into the hands of Hezbollah.

Kochavi’s host was his Chinese counterpart Major General Chen Youyi, 59, an expert on Russian, East Europe and South East Asia affairs. He and other senior Chinese officials met Kochavi in the State Security Ministry, the equivalent of the Israeli Mossad.

A senior Israeli official who wished to remain anonymous said Kochavi’s secret visit to China centered on two major diplomatic-security issues, in which China had a key role − the Iranian nuclear program and the civil war in Syria.

Kochavi showed his Chinese colleagues the latest intelligence reports and presented Israel’s evaluations regarding the progress of Iran’s nuclear program and Syrian President Bashar Assad’s chances of hanging onto power. He also told them of Israel’s fear that chemical and advanced weapons in Syria, some of them made in China, would fall into Hezbollah’s hands.

Kochavi’s visit to China was yet another sign that the security ties between the two states are warming up after years of frosty relations.

The cancellation of the Falcon spy plane sale to Beijing in 2000 and the drones deal in 2005 created tension and suspicion between China and Israel. In both cases Israel cancelled security contracts with China under American pressure, compounding the offense from Beijing’s viewpoint.

However, in the last two years something has changed. In June 2011 Defense Minister Ehud Barak came to China in the first visit by an Israeli defense minister to that country in about a decade. Two months later, in August 2011, the Chinese chief of staff visited Israel and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In May 2012 Chief of Staff Benny Gantz reciprocated by visiting Beijing. Two months before, in March 2012 then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman went on an official visit to China that lasted more than a week.

Sunday evening Netanyahu is due to leave on a visit to China, at a time when Beijing’s relations with Washington are tense. The Americans intend to increase their military presence in South East Asia, are troubled by China’s growing economic influence and hold the Chinese responsible for a series of cyber attacks against American ministries and companies. Netanyahu’s aides have held coordination meetings with senior American officials in recent weeks to prevent hitches and to make sure the prime minister’s visit doesn’t strike any raw American nerve.

The main security issue Netanyahu will raise in China is the Iranian nuclear program. Officially the Chinese say they are not interested in Iran’s obtaining nuclear weapons, but together with Russia they lead the relatively compromising line toward Tehran. The Chinese, who need the Iranian oil, object to expanding the sanctions on Iran and are even more afraid of an Israeli military attack on the nuclear facilities, which will undermine the region’s stability.

Netanyahu is expected to stress at his meeting with China’s president that only increasing pressure on Iran significantly combined with a credible military threat against it could halt the country’s nuclearization and avert a crisis. Netanyahu will also suggest learning a lesson from the North Korean example when dealing with Iran. He will say a nuclear Iran will pose a much greater threat to world peace than North Korea.

Netanyahu is also expected to discuss the civil war in Syria. On this issue, the Chinese again side with Russia in opposing Western efforts to increase pressure on Assad’s regime. China has blocked resolutions against Syria in the UN Security Council several times and objected vehemently to any military intervention in Syria.
Arriving in China a few days after Israel’s air strike in Syria, Netanyahu will tell the Chinese of Israel’s fear that Hezbollah could obtain chemical and advanced weapons, some of them made in China.

Despite the desire to advance Israel’s relations with China, senior Jerusalem officials have no illusions about the ability to generate a dramatic change in Beijing’s positions. The Chinese may be interested in improving relations with Israel, but their interests in the Middle East are almost the opposite of Israel’s, the officials say. It seems that this time too we will have to make do with the jaded diplomatic cliche − the importance of the visit was in the very fact that it took place.

No longer quiet on Israel’s northern front – Diplomacy & Defense – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

For more than two years, Israel has avoided the troubled waters of the changing Arab world. The recent attacks in Syria may herald the end of that period.

IDF soldiers on the Syria-Israel border. Photo by Yaron Kaminsky

If we ignore Jerusalem’s deafening silence and accept the foreign media’s assumption that Israel was behind two aerial attacks in Syria within less than 48 hours, we must assume that there was something near Damascus that Israel urgently felt it had to keep from being transferred to Hezbollah.

For 40 years, Israel has seen Syria as a heavyweight foe, but one usually held in check by the deterrence Israel created to prevent a military attack. Suddenly, we have shifted to a pace of attacks more characteristic of the operations in Gaza or Lebanon.

According to the New York Times, the reason for the attack was a shipment of Iranian-made Fateh-110 missiles that was on its way to Lebanon. The disturbing thing about these missiles is not their range, but their accuracy. The Fateh-110 missile could be the most accurate weapon Hezbollah has.

Of course, the sequence of attacks — the one near Damascus last night was the third this year — heightens the risk of a response from Syria or Hezbollah. The first time, Damascus complained and promised an appropriate military response. The second time, it simply ignored the attack. As Israeli activity in its territory become harsher, Syria faces an urgent dilemma.

Israel has entered an extremely sensitive period on the northern border without the Israeli public being completely aware of it and certainly without knowing the details. If a more significant escalation erupts there, the security of citizens could be affected.

It seems this kind of escalation between Israel and Syria has been simmering behind the scenes for quite some time. Over the past year, Bashar Assad’s regime has steadily been losing its hold in Syria. Assad’s loyalists are throwing everything they have into near-desperate attempts to save what is left of his regime — the capital, Damascus, the Alawite salient in northwestern Syria and the narrow corridor between them. Assad is highly dependent on Hezbollah’s aid in this fight. Perhaps because of that, he cannot really refuse when Hezbollah asks him to transfer arms into Lebanon — and the Lebanese allow this because they believe Assad cannot hold out much longer.

Then there’s the question of where the Americans stand. The Obama administration must admit, too little and too late, the high likelihood that Assad’s loyalists used chemical weapons against their opponents twice in March, once near Damascus and once near Aleppo. Despite President Barack Obama’s reservations about increased American involvement in the war itself, the discoveries could encourage the transfer of significant military aid from the United States to the rebels. This, too, could lead to the tie-breaking action so long delayed in the brutal fight between Assad and his opponents.

At a press conference in Costa Rica Saturday, Obama refused to speak directly about the attack early last Friday morning, but said that Israel had the right to defend itself against the transfer of advanced weapons from Syria to Hezbollah.

For now, this looks like across-the-board American support of Israel’s actions.
The question is how far Israel intends to go in this effort, and whether Syria will eventually decide to respond despite the regime’s fear that a conflict with Israel could lead to its final collapse.

According to a report by the Reuters news agency, the first attack was preceded by a dramatic meeting of the security cabinet Thursday night. The Israeli media is only quoting the foreign press because all the decisions here are made under a heavy cloak of censorship.

For more than two years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has succeeded in navigating these troubled waters with enough caution to keep Israel from being too directly involved in the turmoil that has been changing the power structure in the Arab world from the ground up. The two attacks in Syria — particularly if a response should come — may herald the end of this period. At some point in the near future, Netanyahu will have to explain to his citizens exactly what is going on here.

Israel strikes Syria, targeting missiles: security source | Reuters.

(Reuters) – Israel carried out its second air strikes in days on Syria early on Sunday, a Western intelligence source said, in an attack that shook Damascus with a series of powerful blasts and drove columns of fire into the night sky.

Israel declined to comment, but explosions hit the city a day after an Israeli official said his country had carried out an air strike targeting a consignment of missiles in Syria intended for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The target of Sunday’s attack, according to Syrian media, was the same Jamraya military research center which was hit by Israel in January. Jamraya, on the northern approaches to Damascus, is just 15 km (10 miles) from the Lebanese border.

The Western intelligence source said Israel carried out the attack and the operation hit Iranian-supplied missiles which were en route to Hezbollah.

“In last night’s attack, as in the previous one, what was attacked were stores of Fateh-110 missiles that were in transit from Iran to Hezbollah,” the source said.

Syria’s state television said the strikes were a response to recent military gains by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces against rebels. “The new Israeli attack is an attempt to raise the morale of the terrorist groups which have been reeling from strikes by our noble army,” it said.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the scale of the attack meant it was beyond the military capability of Syrian rebels, and quoted eyewitnesses in the area as saying they saw jets in the sky at the time of the blasts.

The Observatory said the blasts hit Jamraya as well as a nearby ammunition depot. Other activists said a missile brigade and two Republican Guard battalions may also have been targeted in the heavily militarized area just north of Damascus.

Video footage uploaded onto the Internet by activists showed a series of explosions. One lit up the skyline over the city, while another sent up a tower of flames and secondary blasts.

Reports by activists and state media are difficult to verify in Syria because of restrictions on journalists operating there.

If confirmed, Sunday’s attack would be Israel’s third strike inside Syria since late January, but there was no immediate comment from Israeli officials. “We don’t respond to this kind of report,” an Israeli military spokeswoman told Reuters.

MISSILE “BETTER THAN SCUD”

Israel has repeatedly made clear it is prepared to use force to prevent advanced weapons from Syria reaching Lebanon’s Shi’ite Muslim Hezbollah guerrillas, who fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006. Assad and Hezbollah are allied to Iran, Israel’s arch-enemy.

Uzi Rubin, an Israeli missile expert and former defense official said the Fateh-110 missile “is better than the Scud, it has a half-ton warhead”. Iran has said it adapted the missile for anti-ship use by installing a guidance system, he added.

With Assad battling a more than 2-year-old insurgency, the Israelis also worry that the Sunni Islamist rebels could loot his arsenals and eventually hit the Jewish state, ending four decades of relative cross-border calm.

The U.S. State Department and Pentagon had no immediate comment and the Israeli Embassy in Washington declined comment.

Speaking shortly before Sunday’s reported attack, President Barack Obama said Israel had a right to act. “The Israelis justifiably have to guard against the transfer of advanced weaponry to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah,” he told Telemundo network during a tour of Latin America.

There was no immediate indication of how Syria would respond to Sunday’s attack. After Israel’s January raid Damascus protested to the United Nations and the Syrian ambassador to Lebanon promised a “surprise decision”, but no direct military retaliation followed.

The uprising against Assad began with mainly peaceful protests that were met with force and grew into a bloody civil war in which the United Nations says at least 70,000 people have been killed.

Assad has lost control of large areas of north and eastern Syria, and is battling rebels on the fringes of Damascus.

But his forces have launched counter-offensives in recent weeks against the mainly Sunni Muslim rebels around the capital and near the city of Homs, which links Damascus with the Mediterranean heartland of Assad’s minority Alawite sect.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Marwan Makdesi in Damascus, Maayan Lubell and Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Arshad Mohammed and Phil Stewart in Washington; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Don’t Draw That Red Line – NYTimes.com.

By DANIEL BYMAN

¶ “THE use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable,” President Obama warned Bashar al-Assad’s government last December. “If you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable.”

¶ This threat followed the president’s earlier warning that “a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.” This red line has come to haunt Mr. Obama. Last week, the American intelligence community assessed “with varying degrees of confidence” that the Syrians had used the chemical agent sarin in their attacks on the opposition.

¶ The administration’s ultimatum now seems like cheap talk, and it illustrates the risks of carelessly drawing red lines and issuing highly public threats that won’t be enforced.

¶ So far, at least, the Obama administration has put off both consequences and accountability and simply pushed for further investigation. Meanwhile, Mr. Assad has not blinked, and the president’s political opponents, like Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan, argue that Iran and North Korea will draw the wrong lessons if the president lets Mr. Assad call his bluff.

¶ Red lines can be attractive tools of foreign policy, deterring foes from ethnic cleansing, genocide or, in the case of Syria, using chemical weapons. Part of the reason to go public, as one administration official put it last year regarding Syria, is to have a “deterrent effect.” By threatening to act in advance of a problem, you stop the problem and don’t have to act. Issuing a red line can also reassure allies or placate domestic critics.

¶ It may be irrational for a foreign leader to cross an American red line and risk a forceful response. But ambition, misperception or overwhelming internal threats may drive a leader like Mr. Assad to do so anyway.

¶ Also, red lines may be crossed in unanticipated ways. When Mr. Obama issued his warning, American officials feared that the Syrian regime might pass chemical weapons to its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon or use them to kill tens of thousands of its own citizens. That hasn’t happened — American intelligence agencies note only “small scale” use so far — and it isn’t clear if such usage alone merits a change in policy. Enemies, of course, will exploit this ambiguity.

¶ Such irrational and unexpected outcomes in the face of a looming threat are not found only abroad. In Washington, the architects of sequestration believed that both Democrats and Republicans would find the prescribed automatic spending cuts so painful that they would be forced to sign a budget deal. But sequestration happened anyway.

¶ In the Syrian case, the red line on chemical weapons appears to have been issued without a decision as to how we might respond to a Syrian breach or even whether to escalate the situation. Politically this makes sense: it’s easier to agree that Syria should not use chemical weapons and issue a red line to advance deterrence than it is to decide what to do when Syria ignores the threat. But when deterrence fails, the United States looks weak and indecisive.

¶ Moreover, not acting after issuing ultimatums harms America’s reputation. As Mr. Rogers and others have argued, inaction makes it more likely that American red lines elsewhere in the region will be questioned, especially in Iran, which is facing pressure on its nuclear weapons program and watching Syria closely.

¶ Acting purely in the name of credibility, however, can be a mistake, moving the United States to unwisely increase its involvement in one crisis simply to avoid risking another. The United States extended its involvement in the Vietnam War because it feared that losing that war would damage its military credibility and thus embolden the Soviet Union and its allies.

¶ In practice, red lines often create perverse incentives and encourage the enemy to continue aggression even as it avoids a red line. Declaring that the United States would act only if chemical weapons were used in Syria implied that we would tolerate other forms of violence. Indeed, Mr. Assad’s regime has killed over 80,000 of its own people, primarily using artillery and bullets, knowing that these forms of death are not covered by the specific public warning regarding chemical weapons.

¶ Similarly, Israeli threats in the mid-1970s helped persuade Syria to stop its terrorist allies from launching attacks on Israel directly from Syrian soil. But that didn’t end Syria’s support for terrorism: it continued to host groups that launched attacks from outside Syria and encouraged several to use Lebanon as a base.

¶ Finally, it is hard to anticipate every possible response to a public declaration. Secretary of State Dean Acheson declared in 1950 that South Korea was not included in the Asian Defense Perimeter that covered American allies like Japan and the Philippines. This worked: Moscow and its allies refrained from attacking these countries. But the red line’s wording helped convince North Korea and the Soviet Union that the United States would not intervene in South Korea if the North invaded. America intervened anyway.

¶ Given these historical lessons, it is tempting to urge, in defiance of politics or allied demands, that the president should issue a red line only after a decision has been made to act if the line is crossed. But even this is problematic. After all, a red line might be issued months or even years in advance of the crisis. (President George Bush wrote a letter in 1992 telling Serbia not to intervene militarily in Kosovo, but it wasn’t until almost seven years later, under President Bill Clinton, that the United States decided Serbian attacks on Kosovo’s Albanians had gone too far and went to war against Serbia.)

¶ Less time has passed since Mr. Obama issued his red line on Syria, but during the interim the opposition has become more fragmented and the jihadist presence has grown (in part because the United States did so little to help more moderate forces from the start), making intervention harder.

¶ The muddle over the red line on Syria’s chemical weapons should make the Obama administration and its successors think twice before issuing similar public threats without considering what happens if the red line is breached or if an adversary continues committing atrocities that fall short of the line.

¶ If they can’t learn this lesson, public embarrassment, reduced credibility and more dead civilians are the likely results.

¶

Israel strikes Syrian military research center, US official says – World News.

Israeli jets bombed a military research facility north of Damascus early Sunday, a senior official told NBC News — the second Israeli attack on targets in Syria in recent days. 

Heavy explosions shook the city, and video shot by activists showed a fireball rising into the sky after Sunday’s strikes, according to Reuters.

“The new Israeli attack is an attempt to raise the morale of the terrorist groups which have been reeling from strikes by our noble army,” Syrian television said.

A White House official said there would be no official comment Saturday night on the latest attack.

On Friday, Israeli warplanes launched strikes against targets inside Syria, U.S. officials told NBC News. It’s believed the primary target was a shipment of weapons headed for Hezbollah in Lebanon, they said. A senior U.S. official said the airstrikes were believed to be related to delivery systems for chemical weapons.

An Israeli spokesman in Washington said that Israel would not comment specifically on the reports but said that “Israel is determined to prevent the transfer of chemical weapons or other game-changing weaponry by the Syrian regime to terrorists, especially to Hezbollah in Lebanon.”

It wasn’t clear whether the Israelis alerted the U.S. before the attack. White House officials referred all questions to the Israelis.

Syrian government sources denied having information of a strike. Bashar Ja’afari, the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, told Reuters: “I’m not aware of any attack right now.”

But Qassim Saadedine, a commander and spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army, told the news agency: “Our information indicates there was an Israeli strike on a convoy that was transferring missiles to Hezbollah. We have still not confirmed the location.”

Rebel units were in disagreement about what type of weapons were in the convoy, Reuters reported. A rebel from an information-gathering unit in Damascus that calls itself “The Syrian Islamic Masts Intelligence” said the convoy carried anti-aircraft missiles.

The rebel, who asked not to be named, added: “There were three strikes by Israeli F-16 jets that damaged a convoy carrying anti-aircraft missiles heading to the Shi’ite Lebanese party (Hezbollah) along the Damascus-Beirut military road. “One strike hit a site near the (Syrian) Fourth Armoured Division in al-Saboura but we have been unable to determine what is in that location”.

However, Saadedine told Reuters he did not think the weapons were anti-aircraft. “We have nothing confirmed yet but we are assuming that it is some type of long-range missile that would be capable of carrying chemical materials,” he said.

In January, Israeli fighter jets attacked a convoy of sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles believed on their way to Hezbollah.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon publicly acknowledged the January airstrike inside Syria in a joint press conference with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in Tel Aviv on April 22. Ya’alon said any Syrian delivery of sophisticated weapons to rogue elements like Hezbollah would be a “red line” for Israel and “when they crossed this red line, we operated. We acted.”

MSNBC – TV

Syria is in the middle of a civil war pitting rebels against the regime of President Bashir Assad. Tens of thousands have already died, and the possible use of the nation’s stockpile of chemical weapons has been of grave concern to the U.S. and other nations.

Last week, the White House said there was evidence that Syria’s government may have used chemical weapons against its own people. But President Barack Obama has cautioned against rushing to action against Assad’s government, saying that the U.S. required more evidence before getting involved in the civil war there.

The U.S. has long believed that Syria was stockpiling chemical weapons. Intelligence reports indicate that it has sarin and the nerve agent tabun along with traditional chemicals like mustard gas and hydrogen cyanide. A 2011 CIA report said Syria was also developing the potent nerve agent VX, which could render a city uninhabitable for days.

Syria has said that it hasn’t used and will not use chemical weapons.

On Tuesday, Hezbollah’s leader warned the rebels that his militia was ready to intervene on Assad’s side in Syria’s civil war. There have been concerns that Syrian SCUD missiles that might be capable of carrying chemical weapons could be transferred to Hezbollah.

NBC News’ Kristen Welker and Stacey Klein and Reuters contributed to this report.

When it comes to Syria and Hezbollah, Israel is walking a tightrope – Diplomacy & Defense – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

Israel is standing by its red line declarations that no chemical or advanced weapons fall into Hezbollah’s hands, and ensuring that the internal Syrian strife does not become a conflict between it and Assad.

With each passing hour since the latest alleged Israeli air strike on Syria, it seems the danger that the current tension will deteriorate into a direct conflict between Damascus-Hezbollah and Israel lessens.

Jerusalem, as per its custom, is trying ‏(and partially succeeding this time‏) to keep quiet. Reactions from Syria are also fairly quiet. During the last reported attack, in January, Syria stated that next time it would not show restraint toward “Israeli aggression.” This time, Damascus has yet to officially confirm that an attack took place.

It seems Syrian President Bashar Assad, and his allies in Lebanon and Iran, are too deeply rooted in the mud of the Syrian civil war to open an additional front against Israel. That assessment does not completely rule out a focused response, which could be anything from shots fired along the Syrian border, to an attack on Israelis abroad − similar to the suicide bombing in Bulgaria last July. That attack was apparently a response from Hezbollah and Iran to what they called a series of Israeli assassinations on Iranian nuclear scientists.

In this case, Israel is walking a tightrope − standing by its red line declarations that no chemical or advanced weapons fall into Hezbollah’s hands, and ensuring that the internal Syrian strife does not become a conflict between Israel and Assad.

It seems that the relative caution has paid off. The previous Netanyahu government managed to pull off the tightrope walk with a different defense minister, Ehud Barak, who, according to overseas reports, ordered the air force to attack the weapon shipment in January. It seems this policy has remained intact since Moshe Ya’alon assumed the position of defense minister. Israel will continue to need to act wisely in order to avoid being dragged into the Syrian mayhem.

High-ranking officials have refused to discuss the attack with Israeli journalists. The Associated Press, however, quoted a senior Israeli official, who yesterday morning explained that the attack targeted ground-to-ground, long-range missiles, which he described as “game-changing weapons.”

If that report is correct, there is a good chance the weapons in question are Scud D missiles. The Scud D has the longest range and accuracy of any missile in Syria’s arsenal. Three years ago, foreign media reported that a few of them were transferred by Assad to Hezbollah, after Israel hesitated at the last moment and held back from attacking the delivery convoy. Scud D missiles, with their great destructive capabilities and range that covers all of Israel, down to Eilat − even when launched from deep within Lebanon − would most definitely interest Hezbollah. An increase in the number held by the organization would be a dangerous development indeed.

Israeli officials have provided lists in recent years of weapon systems that Israel will not allow to be transferred to Hezbollah, including SA-17 antitank missiles, the P-800 Oniks ‏(or Yakhont‏) antiship cruise missile and, of course, chemical weapons.
Assad himself has an incentive to provide weapons to Hezbollah, in return for the Shi’ite organization’s continued support in his regime’s battle for survival − which translates into nearly 2,000 Lebanese soldiers fighting in Syrian battles and assisting in securing strategic locations.

Before the alleged attack Friday, there were numerous reports of Israeli flights over Lebanese airspace. Apparently these were intelligence-gathering flights, or perhaps a signal to the other side that the intent to smuggle the weapons was known, and Israel would act to thwart it if it indeed happened.

The exact location of the strike is unknown, except that it was near Damascus. A claim from a Syrian rebel group that the site was Damascus’ airport seems to be incorrect.

The first report of the attack actually came from Washington, from a CNN correspondent at the Pentagon. The source was unnamed intelligence officials. If that’s the case, and it was a planned leak, the question remains: Should the report be viewed against the backdrop of the apparent gradual shift of the U.S. government’s policy toward Syria, especially after Israel confirmed that Assad used chemical weapons?

The administration’s hesitation over involving U.S. troops is based on the continued infighting between Syrian rebel groups. The groups, many associated with Al-Qaida-linked extremists, are attempting to conquer the main highway to Damascus, and cut off the city from the large Alawite stronghold in northwestern Syria.

Assad will need every weapon he has to continue fighting, including his air force − as old and beat up as it may be. This is yet another reason why he should avoid direct conflict with Israel, which would require a substantial amount of his dwindling military might.

Israeli Air Force continues air strikes against Damascus.

Israeli rockets over Damascus

Damascus, the same facility which Israeli planes attacked in January. debkafile: The Israeli operation in Syria appears to be in its opening stages, after the first round failed to prevent the transfer of Iran-supplied Scud D and Fateh-110 missiles to Hizballah units fighting in Syria the next day, Saturday. Syrian state TV reported the attack on Jamraya. There was no comment from Israeli spokesmen.

Arab sources reported a series of explosions and fires north of Damascus early Sunday. They say Israeli rockets also hit two 4th Division Republican Guard battalions. The 4th Division is the main Syrian military unit buttressing the regime. It is commanded by President Bashar Assad’s brother, Gen. Maher Assad.

Our military sources have said in the past that the tactic of bombing in Syria advanced weapons shipments in transition from Iran to keep them from reaching Hizballah in Lebanon had been overtaken by the presence of half of Hizballah’s military strength in Syria and able to collect them directly.
And in fact, the Syrian army immediately transferred The Scud D and Fateh-110 consignments directly to the Hizballah elite Al Qods and Al Mahdi brigades which are spearheading the Syrian battle for the key town of Al Qusayr near the Lebanese border, which Syrian rebels have held for more than a year.

The Al Mahdi Brigade joined Al Qods in Syria last Tuesday, April 30.

Israel is determined not to get involved in the Syrian civil war. Therefore, Israel has not struck the advanced weapons passing in this way to Hizballah, which is learning to use them in battle with the rebels. Neither are the 7,000-strong brigades themselves been attacked – thus far.

Israel’s calculus could change when they head back to Lebanon with their new advanced missiles – or before that.
In another response to Israel’s earlier air strike, Syrian army units facing the Jordanian border blasted rebel convoys driving in from Jordan as they passed the Yarmuk River, causing dozens of casualties among the rebels and the Jordanian instructors who had trained them.

Some were hit while still on Jordanian soil; others while on the move from the border past the little Syrian town of Saham al-Jawlan opposite the Golan.

While the Syrian army has made cross-border attacks on Lebanon, this was its first inside Jordan.
The blasts were heard Saturday on the Israeli Golan and caused the cancellation of sporting and other events. Residents were warned that the next time they heard sirens, they were to take heed and seek cover.

Syrian report: Israel bombs outskirts of Damascus for second time in recent days – The Washington Post.

Israeli officials report their target was a shipment of advanced long-range missiles headed to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. They are both a major supporter of the Assad regime in Syria and an outspoken enemy of Israel.

By Liz Sly and Suzan Haidamous, Published: May 4 | Updated: Sunday, May 5, 4:51 AM

Syria strike shows Israel’s security burden increasingly borne by air force | The Times of Israel.

Forget standing armies and reserve troops. Intelligence and long-range air attacks now hold the key to national defense, and they require split-second decisions with drastic potential repercussions

A fully armed F-16 during take off (Photo credit: Ofer Zidon/ Flash 90)

The Israel Air Force, after what may have been several warning flights, struck targets in Syria in the early hours of Friday, according to a bevy of international reports. Pentagon officials speaking to CNN, in a brief but prompt leak, asserted that the US does not believe Israeli warplanes entered Syrian skies and that there “is no reason to believe” that Israel struck at a chemical weapons storage facility.

The latest incident, together with what are believed to be other covert actions by Israeli forces in recent months, shines a stark light on the Israel Defense Forces’ current predicament. Israel faces no threat from a standing army on its borders – perhaps for the first time in its existence – but the multiplicity of other threats are such that the chance of triggering a small war, in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza or Sinai, is now a near-daily concern.

More than ever before, the security of the state of Israel, as the strike in Syria seems to illustrate, is reliant on the combination of operable intelligence and long-range air strikes, rather than the depth of the country’s armored divisions and the speed with which the IDF can summon its reserves.

While much of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s army is in tatters, his air defense remains intact and is “one of the most advanced in the world,” according to Brig. Gen. Asaf Agmon, the director of the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, who says it is superior, at least technologically, to Iran’s air defenses.

According to the New York Times, quoting anonymous US officials, the strike early Friday was launched from Lebanon and targeted a shipment of Iranian ballistic missiles that had arrived at Damascus airport. The Fatah 110 missiles, which Hezbollah reportedly possesses in small number already, were stored in a warehouse under Iranian control and destined for Lebanon, the paper reported.

A look at the previous air strike in Syria, alongside Assad’s current predicament and Hezbollah’s wish list for weapons, buttresses that American assessment.

In late January, the IAF reportedly struck targets near the Scientific Studies and Research Center in Jamraya, outside Damascus. Last week the Wall Street Journal revealed that the attacking aircraft in thar incident did not enter Syrian airspace. The paper attributed this ability to a “lofting” maneuver. This means that a pilot flies low and fast and then suddenly pulls up off the ground and in that way lobs a missile toward a faraway target.

“It’s a rather dated technique,” said Agmon. “We used it during the Yom Kippur War.”

Agmon noted that Israel has more advanced techniques and technologies today. He did not want to be more specific but the IAF reportedly possesses Rafael-made air-to-surface Popeye missiles that can strike a truck convoy from over a hundred kilometers away, well within Lebanese and not Syrian airspace.

That would likely have been the weapon of choice early Friday if in fact the IAF carried out the strike.

In 2007, Israel allegedly struck deep within Syria and obliterated a North Korean-made plutonium nuclear reactor. No Israeli officials spoke with the international media several days later or made obvious winks and nods in the direction of responsibility. Taking credit for the strike, all officials believed, would compel Assad to respond, perhaps triggering all-out war with Syria.

Today the situation has changed. War with Syria seems unlikely. Assad’s army is a shell of its former self. The reason Israel avoids Syria’s skies is Assad’s air defense system.

This sort of system would be at the very top of Hezbollah’s shopping list.

The organization juggles several agendas. It seeks to spread the Islamic Revolution as preached from Tehran, to wage war against Israel and to raise its popularity in, and hold over, Lebanon. Those agendas do not always cohere.

In the past, in the late 80s and 90s, Hezbollah claimed to be fighting Israel – acts not seen by all in Lebanon as in the country’s best interest –in order to free Lebanese soil of the Israeli presence. After Israel’s 2000 withdrawal from the south Lebanon “security zone,” the organization continued to amass its arsenal of arms and to develop its army within the sovereign state of Lebanon, it said, in order to rid Lebanon’s skies of Israeli aircraft, among other things. Shooting down an Israeli aircraft over Lebanon would be seen, and surely celebrated, as a victory for the entire cedar state.

But it seems unlikely that Assad would, at this time, reward Hezbollah for its efforts in Syria with surface-to-air missiles. Ever since an Israeli intelligence officer revealed on April 23 that Assad had used sarin gas as a weapon in Syria, the international community has made signs of moving toward implementing a no-fly zone over the country. The regime needs its air defense now more than ever before.

While Arab nations have long emphasized air defense — in the 1973 Yom Kippur War the IAF was stripped of its power by Russian-made surface-to-air missiles — today much of Israel’s defense, perhaps more than ever before, rests on the IAF’s strike capacity (and the homefront’s ability to endure). Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, the commander of the IAF, last year described the current period as a war between wars and said that in regards to Syria it is the air force that “almost exclusively” shoulders the burden.

The ability to work with the Mossad, the Shin Bet and military intelligence, along with the readiness and flexibility of the air force, he said, mean that when “a problem pops up” there is no one else who can “act almost immediately.”

The range of threats is enormous. “From the knife to the nuclear,” Eshel said. And the vast majority of them are addressed by a combination of intelligence and long-range strike capacity.

“I have a hard time seeing any place we cannot reach,” said Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, the commander of the IDF General Staff, in April. “Maybe if tomorrow there’s a problem in Antarctica then we’ll have to see.”

Gantz, on that day, was in a jocular mood. He said Syria could turn into Allawistan or Afghanikan, a play off the Hebrew for “Afghanistan is here.”

But the chief of the General Staff is well aware that on a nearly daily basis there are developments that could spark a mini war with one of Israel’s neighbors, and Israel’s response involves split-second decisions that can go woefully wrong or immaculately right.

The strike on early Friday, thus far, seems to belong in the latter category. But the challenges will continue.